Fredericks & Freiser is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of new work by Lamar Peterson. For his eleventh one-person show, Peterson returns to his familiar subjects of the landscape and the suburban experience, depicting scenarios of dream-like chaos with a cartoon vernacular.

Inspired by elementary school bulletin boards, educational activity books, and crepe paper streamers, Peterson creates graphic portraits of an irrational world where happy characters are resolutely accepting of grotesque misfortune. The plague of absurdities presented in these paintings is rooted in popular culture as much as it is in old-hat surrealism. Issues of race, community, and social and economic upheaval are candy-colored and darkly comic. Smiling faces are unrelenting. Peterson never allows his people to be fazed. They never notice the nightmare. And it is here, within this pitiless deadpan that his work resonates.

About the ArtistLamar Peterson born 1974 in St. Petersburg, Florida received his MFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 2001. He has had previous solo exhibitions at The Studio Museum of Harlem, New York; Richard Heller Gallery, Los Angeles; Deitch Projects, New York; and Franklin Art Works, Minneapolis, MN. He has exhibited in numerous group shows including the Fifth International SITE Santa Fe Biennial curated by Robert Storr, Santa Fe, NM; The Drawing Center, New York, NY; The Kemper Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO; The Ulrich Museum, Wichita, KS; and the Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, NY. This is his fourth solo exhibition with Fredericks & Freiser.